Between 1830 and 1860, a time of increasing national divisions over slavery, numerous accounts of slave life were published. These accounts of life under slavery almost invariably had either abolitionist or pro slavery agendas. Slaves in the ante-bellum South lived under a wide variety of circumstances, and held a variety of positions, including household servant, wagon driver, iron foundry workers and skilled artisan. Nine out of ten slaves however, worked as farm laborers, growing cotton, tobacco, rice, and other products. About half of these laborers worked on large plantations of twenty slaves or more, while the others worked on smaller and poorer farms, often alongside their master.Patterns of life on these plantations were roughly similar. Slaves worked from dawn to dusk under the supervision of their master or of white or black overseers. Owners had unlimited legal rights to decide and administer punishment to their human property, and whipping was commonly used. Most slaves were illiterate. Slaves that stubbornly refused to obey rules were sold. Marriages among slaves had no legal standing, and families were often broken up by the selling of one or more members.Slave holders rob slaves of themselves, also; their very hands and feet, and all their muscles, and limbs, and senses, their bodies and minds, their time and liberty earnings, their free speech and rights of conscience, their right to acquire knowledge and property and reputation.Slaves were physically abused. They were practically starved, there wasnt enough clothing, and living conditions were horrible. Worst of all is that they suffered throughout many whippings. For whipping the slaves in Virginia their where no rules or sympathy involved. The slave receives from the slave holder from fifty to five hundred lashes. The slave owner would think fifty lashes as an insult to the slave. If the slave is let off with fifty lashes he must show good temper. Me...
